Posts by: Lindsay Comstock

“Having the venue to make all this work in a streamlined and organized manner from orders to invoices lays the groundwork for responsible business practices.” — Ben Lowy on his virtual storefront, made with Squarespace.

In my recent interview with commercial and editorial photographer, Ben Lowy, he talked about how designing a second website for his commercial work was a great way for him to differentiate the heavier subject matter of his editorial journalism (often shot in war zones) with the more lighthearted (yet still narrative) commercial work. But in addition to these parallel careers, image sales are also an important revenue stream for the photographer. One unique aspect of Lowy’s new Squarespace website — which is an all-in-one platform — is the inclusion of a storefront in which clients and fans of his work can purchase prints. We asked him about launching and selling work through his personal online Squarespace store.

“Rainroom.” New York City, NY. June 24, 2014. Editions starting at $125.

How do you decide which images you would sell on your store?
“We started with specific images that have been popular over the years. We also wanted a place where we could sell my popular and often requested Instagram images.”

The summer season is in full-throttle in the Northern Hemisphere which means there’s an onslaught of summer exhibitions — where curated group shows reign supreme and emerging artists are given space on walls otherwise often reserved for more iconic names.

The summer group show in New York is often a diversion for those in town during the hot summer months — before the galleries close shop during August — and can also be, in the case of the inaugural Summer Open at Aperture Foundation (where the work of 97 artists is on display through August 14), a playful way to take on more serious thoughts on the state of contemporary photography.

I caught up with Aperture’s Executive Director Chris Boot, who curated the exhibit, to hear more about why he thinks photography today is “highly sophisticated and self-aware” and why themes like “Forest as Idyll,” “Flowers,” and “Ice and Wallpaper” (all sections within the larger exhibit) are important.

Ben Lowy, the award-winning photojournalist known for his strong editorial images taken in war zones recently launched a new Squarespace website for his commercial work, differentiating his two distinct brands while keeping his photographic aesthetic intact. Lowy, who is one of those extremely prolific photographers, is able to create dynamic commercial work that appears as sensitive as his journalistic work, but for clients like Exxon, The Olympics, Dasani and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit. While he says he’s always going back to his “fighting work and violence in America” projects, his photographic ideology is inextricably linked with storytelling, whether for commercial or editorial interests. We asked him a few questions about launching the new site.

Why was it important for you to distinguish your corporate/commercial work on a separate website?
“After a decade working in the editorial world, I realized that it was really hard to mix two distinct markets. The subject matter and aesthetic of my editorial site was completely different from what I wanted to show in my commercial site and we couldn’t quite reconcile the two. As a photographer who made my name covering conflict, I found that some of the content of my work was inappropriate in a commercial context and even made potential commercial clients wary. I also started getting a lot of comments from art buyers who thought that I would be really serious and brooding because they had this preconceived idea of who I was after viewing my editorial work. I wanted to introduce myself and my personality more into the commercial site.”

In our Polaroid group show, 25 photographers show us their contemporary interpretations of the instant film medium which has made a comeback in recent years as a relevant fine art form. Photographer Mikael Kennedy, who has taken thousands of Polaroids over the last 15 years, was judge of the competition. He chose the following photographers for their dynamic interpretation of the theme.

Congratulations to Olivia Locher, Ian Allaway, and Lorenzo Papadia, who will receive a one-year subscription to Squarespace, the innovative website publishing platform perfect for the creative. They make it simple to create professional websites that are 100% customizable, making web design accessible to everyone. Complete with award-winning designs, hosting, domains, commerce, and 24/7 support, Squarespace offers photographers more ways to market themselves and grow their business.

I think it’s safe to say that Ibarionex Perello — street photographer, writer, educator, and host of the photography podcast, The Candid Frame — is a Renaissance man. Whether he’s interviewing the people behind the lens (more than 240 in eight years on his podcast, including household names like Elliot Erwitt, Dan Winters, and Mary Ellen Mark), photographing the characters and intriguing juxtapositions of the Los Angeles streets (where he’s based), or teaching at the Art Center College of Design, his graphic and gritty visual aesthetic is apparent.

I caught up with the photographer to hear about how he balances his varying roles, what he finds most interesting about the photographic medium today, and how he showcases all of his projects on his Squarespace-powered website.

When self-subscribed “cartography enthusiast” and “crypto-anarchist,” Rob Brulinski, moved into a Baltimore factory once owned by the inventor of the bottle cap, he was ready to be freed from the daily grind of office life at an engineering firm. Brulinski — who’s primarily a photographer, travel writer, and online editor for Blood of the Young these days, and who documents American culture with a discerning eye — turned to creative partner and photographer Alex Wein, who was in search of a thesis project in his last year at the Maryland Institute College of Art. They planned to start a photo studio together at the defunct factory-turned-artist-residence, The CopyCat, but what ensued was a photo series that allowed them to see deeper into the lives of their artist neighbors.

Emma Kisiel is a photographer dedicated to animals, documenting them throughout their life cycle in vivid images that beckon us to reconsider our connection to the animal kingdom. Her engagement with the natural world takes her to museums to photograph dioramas of ecosystems, to sites where animals have fallen prey to the road. In addition to showcasing her strong portfolio online, she also sells prints and books. The need to bridge these elements together made her a perfect candidate for a website makeover, thus she was chosen as our third makeover recipient sponsored by Squarespace.

Before her makeover, she had this to say about her web presence: “The past few months I’ve been spending time on other artists’ sites, and I realized that I really want to update it in terms of its layout and design. For example, I’ve had sidebar navigation since 2009 and I feel like most artists’ sites are starting to move away from that. I have some exciting things coming up for my work, as well as a couple new series to release online and a new logo, and I’d like to relaunch my identity with all of that. Sites like Squarespace make it so easy today that there’s little need for photographers to hire someone to create a beautiful, functional website for them, so that’s the direction I’d like to go in.”

We talked to the artist to hear about the process of making her new website.

In our Intimacy group show, photographers reveal their interpretations of the emotional, intellectual, physical, and sexual space in which humans inhabit. Artist, photographer, educator, and curator Keren Moscovitch — who teaches at School of Visual Arts in New York and whose work centering on themes of intimacy and sexuality was the judge for this competition. She chose the following photographers for their talented interpretation of the theme.

Congratulations to Emmanuelle Bosse, Sebastian Collett, and Soopakorn Srisakul, who will receive a one-year subscription to Squarespace, the innovative website publishing platform perfect for the creative. They make it simple to create professional websites that are 100% customizable, making web design accessible to everyone. Complete with award-winning designs, hosting, domains, commerce, and 24/7 support, Squarespace offers photographers more ways to market themselves and grow their business.

When Polaroid entered the market in 1948, it was a process that would revolutionize the way photographers thought about image-making. Once an effective on-set testing tool, the instant film camera soon became a ubiquitous object in the photo-hobbyist arsenal, and in recent years, a sought-after aesthetic after Polaroid film production ceased. But with other companies taking the charge in instant film production, groups like the Impossible Project keeping the process alive, and countless apps offering Polaroid filters, the Polaroid legacy seems here to stay.

Now we’d like to see the work you’ve made using instant film (or the instant film aesthetic). Please send us your best work by July 25.

The top three winners will receive a free one-year subscription to Squarespace, the intuitive website publishing platform that makes it simple for photographers to build creative and professional sites with their combo of award-winning designs, hosting, domains, and commerce. Selected photos will run on the Feature Shoot website and be promoted through our social media channels. Copyright remains with the photographer.

Photographer Mikael Kennedy, who has been taken thousands of Polaroids over the last 15 years and whose instant film work has caught the attention of companies like J. Crew, galleries like Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art, and publications like The New Yorker and TIME LightBox, is judge of this competition. In 2006, he started a Tumblr called Passport to Trespass where he publishes his Polaroids work documenting his life and travels. He has since published several limited-edition artists books from the series.

To submit, email up to five images (620 pixels wide on the shortest side, saved for web, under 200KB) titled with your name and the number of the image (ex: yourname_01.jpg) to submissions (at ) featureshoot (dot) com with “Polaroid” in the subject line. Please include your full name, website, and image captions within the body of the email.

“Breathe Me In” from the series The Heart and The Heavy by Heather Evans Smith, a commissioned CSA photographer.

In a time when being an artist is at once a fleeting concept (due to competition from an increasing number of artists and less government support for the arts) and one full of potential (due to increasing opportunities made possible by social media), where does one begin to fund a project? Jennifer Schwartz of Crusade for Art is on a mission, trying to piece together the puzzle by connecting emerging photographers with collectors and galleries — one art CSA at a time – as well as providing grant opportunities for new projects.

As part of our partnership with Squarespace, where we interview creatives in the photography world who are using their templates, we caught up with the gallerist-turned-arts-evangelist who told us why now is the time for art and what we can do to protect it.